As the co-founder of the Scottish game development studio, Sad Owl Studios, as well as the principle game designer and director of Viewfinder, Matt Stark was totally unprepared for how much attention and acclaim his first person puzzle game would receive when it was eventually released in July last year. And since its release, the game has grossed $2 million in revenue (according to GameSensor), and has won a number of awards (including a BAFTA).
I caught up with Matt Stark to find out a little bit more about his company, what inspired him to create a game where the goal is to reshape the world by using an instant camera, how he's been handling success, and what his future goals are as a emerging talent... Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/FXX1bYpioAM
Ok, let's start with the top... Why call your company Sad Owl Studios?
There's a picture out there that's like a meme where there's an owl that's wet and it looks so sad and dishevelled, and one of our producers was laughing at it for a solid hour. There's a few other reasons as to why we chose it. One is that it has a nice memorable acronym, "SOS". We got a nice domain for it, SOS.games, and we can have nice logo with SOS. Another reason is that so many videogame studios have names that a...